Le Weekend

A period of insomnia, the kind that has me waking at three in the morning. Three o'clock, either end of the day, is always difficult, a friend calls it "crucifixion time", and it does seem to nail me to something or other. I try never to plan for anything at three in the afternoon, and when I worked night shifts in a hospital it was the time when all worst things happened. But last night, after another trip to IKEA that lasted until closing time (I won't explain, believe me you won't want to know), I was so overtired I couldn't actually get to sleep until nearly three. I then woke four hours later, and decided to seize the day: swim, writing session, food shop. I bought two large rainbow trout from the new local fishmonger who catches them locally and Mr. Signs cooked them Meuniere-style, while I slept, and we had them for supper. Being vegetarian now (apart from fish), this amount of concentrated protein left me feeling strangely breathless, as though I myself were a fish out of water gasping for my own element. I didn't like it - the feeling, I mean. The fish was actually delicious. And this evening I've been re-drafting a poem where trout came in the form of some creature's mottled skin.

A Lewes workshop day tomorrow, and much else to get done. Monday we spend our first night in the Brighton flat. Excited.